Slade Prints of the 1950s

An exhibition examining the printmaking work of Slade School students from the 1950s opened at UCL's Strang Print Room on 25 April 2005.

'Slade Prints of the 1950s' has been curated by five students from the History of the Print MA and includes early works from distinguished artists such as Richard Hamilton, Stanley Jones and Bartolomeu dos Santos.

The Slade's printmaking department of the 1950s offered students an escape from the academic curriculum and its emphasis on life drawing; affording them the freedom to experiment with new practices and themes. Students were actively encouraged to run with new ideas by Slade tutors such as John Buckland Wright and Anthony Gross, whose work can also be seen in the exhibition.

This warm and supportive relationship between staff and students is a major theme of the exhibition and was researched through a number of interviews between many of the artists on display and the curators. Catherine Allison singles out a print by Stanley Jones as indicative of this atmosphere: "The four colour lithograph, Landscape with wood and trees, came about after John Piper encouraged Jones to take his sketchbook to the North Yorkshire moors to provide inspiration for his lithographs."

Joanne Wilson contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue on Richard Hamilton, who went on to become one of the key figures in British pop art. Hamilton's Reaper series of prints is on display, and he warmly recalled his Slade print teacher in an interview with Johanna Plant: "I only went to John Buckland Wright's classes. He was encouraging and generous to me, he even offered a measure of respect that I was not used to as a student."

A further theme of the exhibition is how the artists were influenced by life in the austerity of post-war Britain. For Johanna Plant, this is captured perfectly by Bartolomeu dos Santos' print, Two Signals: "Stark against the grey sky, two street signs stand as reminders of London in the 1950s, still in the process of rebuilding after the war."

However, there were moments of hope and celebration in 1950s Britain too, as Harriet O'Neill points out: "Coronation by Philip Sutton depicts a fireworks display above the London skyline. The riot of colour alludes to a moment of celebration in the midst of austerity."

Images: Top - The exhibition curators, from left: Joanne Wilson, Johanna Plant, Catherine Allison, Harriet O'Neill. Bottom - Harold Cohen's Abstract in red, blue and white.